Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Femogamy: A New Term for the Manosphere.

Everyone who has spent any time amongst the Manosphere blogs is by now familiar with the term hypergamy: the desire for women to marry up. Unfortunately, as far as I'm aware, there doesn't appear to be a similar term for the equivalent male urge: the desire to marry more attractive, feminine women, i.e. younger, hotter, tighter. This is an unfortunate omission which tends to stymy a good understanding of the human libido and relationship dynamics. Many manosphere commentators, especially the MRA crowd, fail to understand that female hypergamy is a natural instinct and not some perverted moral choice.

The reason I bring this up is because there has been an interesting discussion going on over here which seems to illustrate quite clearly the categorical error made by many manosphere commentators. They can't seem to recognise that, when it comes to the human libido, the hypergamous impulse in women is equivalent to the (femogamous?) impulse in men. There may be better words to describe the impulse out there, and I'm all open to suggestions, but I think this omission of a name for male-specific sexual desire confuses the situation, especially amongst weaker minds.

Weaker minds, I feel, make a category error when dealing with hypergamy, attributing to it a moral dimension which really isn't there. Hypergamy is the natural object of female sexuality. It's not a choice, and therefore devoid of a moral dimension, but a hard wired instinct. It's what women involuntarily feel in the presence of a suitable male. Women have about as much choice about their hypergamous natures as men do about their femogamous ones. It's a fact of life and getting angry about it is about as idiotic as getting angry about the orbital motion of the planets or the unfairness of Plank's constant. How a woman chooses to act on those feelings confer a moral dimension to them, but the fact of being attracted to alpha males is morally neutral.

In many ways the men complaining against hypergamy are akin to the "fat acceptance" crowd and their logic, when complaining about male femogamy. The fatties are constantly harping on about how there is something wrong with men for preferring thinner women. The MRA/MGTOW crowd are constantly asserting that there is something wrong with women for preferring higher status males. Both loser groups, being the neglected victims of natural human desires, want to punish or constrain normal people from having them. Social engineering is the preferred vehicle.

One of the big tenets of conservative thought is of accepting the reality of human nature. Conservatives believe that you can't socially engineer it to your pleasure; that intellectual error belongs to the Left. And if you think about this a bit more deeply, you'll see then that the anti-hypergamy crowd aren't conservative in any sense at all, rather, their thought process is fundamentally radical, more akin to the left, in their understanding of human nature. That's why there is an overlap between traditionalist "romantic" understandings of women and feminism.

If anyone has a better name for the concept I'd be glad to hear from them.

Femogamy fits. The point is, decades ago, through strong fathers and family/community shaming, femogamy and hypergamy were controlled. The young man wants to hook up with the cocktail waitress at the Bimbo club who gave him a rise while the young woman wants to hook up with the thug at the end of the bar who gives her the tingles.

Father, family, community and popular entertainment would steer their young adults towards decent members of the opposite sex who would make good husbands or wives. No longer the case.

Female hypergamy and Male femogamy may indeed be natural and evolutionary mechanisms that served us well prior to the industrial revolution. But in today's world, it's an evolutionary trait that can reverse us back to a more primal state if left unchecked.

Do realize the main gripe is that our society, a feminized and feminist controlled society celebrates female hypergamy and removes any obstacles to it to allow it to run unchecked, and in fact is socially approved and rubber stamped as a cultural norm.

Male femogamy is repressed and culturally shunned. it is not tolerated, it is decried and vilified, and it's offender cast out and harshly punished.

Whereas female hypergamy can be seen in all areas of life as women divorce men at a steady clip, leaving beta husbands for alpha men, dropping boys for men, always looking for the next better greater thing on the greener grass.

The man dropping his aging wife for a young harlot can only be found in hollywood, and one might think it's done on purpose to extend both parties 15 minutes of fame. Femogamy is more urban myth, folk tale, legend than reality.

...you'll see then that the anti-hypergamy crowd aren't conservative in any sense at all, rather, their thought process is fundamentally radical, more akin to the left, in their understanding of human nature.

I agree with this as fact. However, methinks knowing a fact to be true doesn't tell us what to do about it.

My translation: having never been free before, women have not evolved to handle sexual freedom within any working civilization. Children are doomed in this environ due to lack of male support, which must be nurtured to prosper (see the book The Garbage Generation). It's not about right or wrong, it's rather about survival and reality.

At the current pace of feminine cultural decay, Muslims & Orientals (who reject the glass ceiling in favor of a concrete one) may be the only civilizations left standing by the end of the sexual revolution. It's sad, because the glass ceiling is a much more pleasant world than the alternatives...

I think most men come to terms with hypergamy sooner or later. The problem is that while in more patriarchal societies female sexuality is constrained, contemporary western societies have degenerated to the point where younger women can ride the carousel until they lose their hotness and tightness. When they settle in their 30s for the betas they scorned earlier, why WOULDN'T betas feel resentful at not getting the best pussy in its prime years? Even worse, some betas wind up as wallets for these girls' bastard spawn.

If you believe in unrestrained hypergamy and "femogamy" than please give up your pretensions of being Christian. Someone who embraces raw nature without attempting to enoble it is nothing but a nihilist of the crudest sort.

1. Hypergamy is a animal instinct in females cannot control and governs attraction, not marriage selection. Indeed Hypergamy is a big reason why females do not want to get married.

2. The male equivalent to hypergamy is called polyamory. While a female will select for the best and then test to make sure the man is still the best, men will look at other women/be attracted to other women even when they have a woman. Femogamy is not a word and males are not Hypergamous. To say otherwise is projection.

3. Marraige is social engineering that makes civilization possible. Hypergamy causes inter-male conflict as females jump from man to man, and polyamory results in a situation where 60% of all human males who ever lived do not have enough sex in their lifetimes to produce offspring. Without their investment in society, they rebel and cause upheaval or drop out of society resulting in very weak societies.

4. Few consider the effects that welfare programs aimed at females interact with hypergamy. With a generous cushion of benefits, women no longer seek out providers and instead chase bad boys. (Since money is freely provided to them, men who work hard.for thei living are seen as irrelevant). Arguably this is good for women, but men notice this too, and American men just will not do hard work that isn't high status anymore. A nation of video game nerds, thugs and playas will not be able to pay off a $16 trillion debt.

2. The male equivalent to hypergamy is called polyamory. While a female will select for the best and then test to make sure the man is still the best, men will look at other women/be attracted to other women even when they have a woman. Femogamy is not a word and males are not Hypergamous.

Exactly, furthermore there is no need to bring out men's attraction cues and put them in bold relief because men are aware of them and readily admit to them, except perhaps when they lie to their wives and girlfriends for their benefit and at their behest.

As for outrage among MRAs, imagine that suddenly men all decided that henceforth, they will drop their wives and girlfriends when their attraction for them wanes and trade up for a younger, hotter model, and that it is in their power to do so. Women, especially older ones, would be outraged, bitter and heartbroken. What would you tell them? That that's life and to suck it up? And then imagine that men decided to give all their attentions not to average looking but decent women, but instead to hot strippers and hookers with fake breasts and hair and lots of make up. Oh well, that's life right? It's just men's "femogamy". It's amoral, or something.

I don't believe polyamory is the correct term, because women engage in it too. It also doesn't fit the definition given at the beginning of the post, which is "the desire to marry more attractive, feminine women, i.e. younger, hotter, tighter." Although the wording could be interpreted to mean "marry more than one hotter, tighter, younger women." Heh.

That said, I agree with all the points brought up by Anonymous (4:34). Femogamy/gynogamy is not the full male equivalent to female hypergamy, you need to add polygyny/polyamory to the mix.

A return to traditionalism and traditional social structures.

'Traditional social structures' are only called traditional because our historical memory is so short. Actually, modern humans have existed for 50,000-100,000 years and lacked these innovative 'traditions' for 95% of the period, while today most societies are busily dismantling them to return us to the natural state. And for better or worse, this state does not appear to be able to support civilization. Both you and Susan should read J.D. Unwin's "Sex and Culture": it's available for free on the internets, you can skip the general survey chapter and the notes and ignore his Freudian and physical digressions. Unwin's point is that, anthropologically and historically, "unconditional acceptance of hypergamy and femogamy" by a particular culture causes its degeneration and collapse about three generations after the new customs become widespread. Once the bonds are loosened, it is very difficult to tighten them back.

@Susan

My own view is that we have evolved so that we have never been better wired for mating then we are today.

Better according to what standard?

That means unconditional acceptance of hypergamy and femogamy.

Please see long remark above.

The differences between the sexes are vitally important for attraction, sexual tension, and of course reproduction.

They sure are, but this does not entail either unconditional acceptance of the mating instincts or the view that we have never been better wired for mating than we are today.

"My own view is that we have evolved so that we have never been better wired for mating then we are today."

Not really. If you had said "Social constraints have been removed on hypergamy so that women have never been better able to have sex with the men they want than they are today", I would have agreed with you.

SLumlord: It's not that women want to marry up; it's that they want to fuck the best men.

It's not that men want to marry younger, hotter, tighter; its that they want to fuck all the women.

Marriage has very, very little to do with it. Marriage is a beneficial social construct overlaid on top of the natural inclinations to harness and control them.

Strong agree on the MRA/MGTOW crowd. Why I don't read them in favor of the Game blogs --Chateau Heartiste, Alpha Game, Athol, etc.

Meanwhile, to your essay.

In an earlier essay you wrote, with approval, about a study:

"Women's sexuality seems "plastic" to a degree that it just isn't in men. And as Baumeister hints in his papers, it is the social milleu in which females operate that strongly molds their erotic desires."

To be fair to the MRA/MGTOW crowd, I think their argument is:

If female desire is socially context dependent much more then male desire;

And human nature (instinct, etc.) can't be changed;

But social contexts (laws, rules, mores) can;

Isn't it at least counterproductive in a utilitarian perspective to change the social context in ways that increase (artificially?) female social status as against male social status? Wouldn't that leave, inevitably, a smaller % of men that women would find attractive? Wouldn't that have all kinds of negative externalities and costs for civilization?

Stop with the strawmen already. We (yeah, I'm speaking for all of us, I guess) aren't angry at NATURE; we're angry at the unjust law and mass-media culture today that stacks the deck against Beta men (the other 80% of us). This is an artifice less than 50 years old, an ignoble experiment.

If you want to equate the evolved morality of Western Civilization -- the monogamous family -- with a radical "social engineering" scheme then OK, but at least admit that it has a longer and much better track-record.

And you need to read more evo-psych. (I know that like all MDs you think you already know everything, but...) The main 'animal' drive on the male side is polygamy -- using surplus resources to acquire more mates. Yes, we like 'em young and nubile but that is secondary. (And women too prefer youth and virility, ceteris paribus.)

Monogamy depends on strong social controls that keep both these base instincts in check.

I think you've missed the critical point of anti-hypergamy discourse: that feminism and "equal otcomes for women" have entirely undermined the biological value of hypergamy. The imposition of an articificial system - equal outcomes - has rendered the biological reality a moral dilemma. It's the moral dilemma that the anti-hypergamists are seeking to resolve. They don't seek to condemn hypergamy itself, but to roll back the artificial system that has turned it into uncivilised self-interest.

Reducing it to a biological reality with a call to simply accept that and be happy with what we've got is to assert that the law of the jungle needs no judge.

Are you saying that a return to traditional ways and social structures is a form of radical leftist social engineering?

Yes. They share a common underlying logic. Both groups believe that if you provide enough carrots and sticks you can change human nature.

The trad crowd believe that a return to traditional society would cure us of our ills. i.e removal of the right of women to vote, loss of economic independence or women's access to education. The aim is to engineer a dependency on men so that women are forced into roles that they may not necessarily choose.

@Carnivore

The problem isn't women's hypergamic instincts, the real issue is the current cultural matrix which modulates the expression of hypergamy.

In days of old people were expect to "control themselves". The real acid of modernity is moral relativism and romanticism. Romanticism and its philosophical older brother, Utilitarianism, makes "feelings" the determinate of actions. If it feels right then it is right, is its underlying message.

The Christian woman acknowledges the existence of hypergamy but controls herself. Her hypergamy is modulated by the moral law. But more importantly, Christian men need to recognise that a woman's desire for a man will only awake if he satisfies her hypergamic instinct. Keeping her locked up in a room of beta males is not going to fuel here desire.

@To all of those who seem to have a problem with understanding the topic.

I know feminism is evil but feminism and hypergamy are two distinct things, and conflation of the two just clouds our understanding.

@Dancery

I'm on the record as saying trad society was better than the modern one. It's problem however was that it had self destructive tendencies. Female liberation didn't arise ex nihlo, but rather because industrial society produced a situation which many women found justly intolerable.

@JIS this is not a discussion about the evils of the current social structure, rather a discussion about the hypergamous instinct. Which is a separate thing.

@CMC

Isn't it at least counterproductive in a utilitarian perspective to change the social context in ways that increase (artificially?) female social status as against male social status?

That's a very good point. But it's my contention, as said in my Cigstachio post, is that the current situation really hasn't elevated women, it's just removed the shackles from them. I'll use Australia as an example because the affirmative action crowd are nowhere as strong here as in the U.S.

In medical school, for instance, there is no affirmative action program yet just over 50% of the students are female. There appears to be a "natural equality" at play here once you remove the restriction against women. If men are naturally superior to women, and their superiority is being usurped by the social, why then isn't there a greater percentage of men in medical school here? Remember we have no affirmative action requirements for medical school.

It's true that our culture is profoundly hostile to the white male, but I think a far bigger problem is that white males have dropped the ball. The whole, "if there is nothing in it for me then I refuse to play" ethos amongst many just sickens me. My manhood is unconditional.

Do realize the main gripe is that our society, a feminized and feminist controlled society celebrates female hypergamy and removes any obstacles to it to allow it to run unchecked, and in fact is socially approved and rubber stamped as a cultural norm.

Male femogamy is repressed and culturally shunned. it is not tolerated, it is decried and vilified, and it's offender cast out and harshly punished.

Roissy, Roosh, Vk etc refute you. They seem to be able to fuck with abandon and not get into any trouble with it. As for female hypergamy, its the feminist preistesshood that celebrates it. The slut slur still carry's a hell of a lot of weight in our society.

@Brandon

Facepalm. Where have I said that unrestrained sexuality is ok? Jeez, it's so hard sometimes. This is a discussion about the female hypergamous instinct, not about the morality of its expression. Let me help you.

I think unrestrained hypergamy is bad. But hypergamy is a fact of female nature. The question then is how do you accommodate it without unleashing its destructive tendencies? Traditional society strongly enforced marriage as a social structure with little emphasis on interparty dynamics. Cultivating desire for each other was actively shunned under the matnra of morality. Modern society celebrates it even though it is destroying it. Third way solutions need to be found.

Hypergamy isn't meant to refer to people going for the most attractive mate possible.

It feres to a particular mating strategy amongst women and how it differs from men.

Both men and women seek the most attractive they can find, the difference is;

women seek the best ONE, with the particular ONE changing depending on which male has the most power/status/wealth.

whereas men seek the best ALL, with the best referring to those females that are young, attractive and fertile.

The best example would be a gorilla troupe. The females mating with the male gorilla are hypergamous but the male mating with the female gorillas is polygynous. Now if that male gorilla is overthrown then the females when begin mating with the new top gorilla as he is now the best.

The reason I beleive the term hypergamy came into effect in the manosphere was to try and get rid of the notion that females are monogamous. They are not. They are hypergamous. They are perfectly happy to mate with one male at a time, until that male is overthrown and then they will switch the the new stronger male. Whereas monogamy suggests a desire by females to have one mate for life, hypergamous suggests a desire by female to mate with the one best male for life or as long as he is the best male.

"Fantastic post, SP! My own view is that we have evolved so that we have never been better wired for mating then we are today."

A cage owner's reassuring, nodding smile, and her little lovely soft hand, gently motions another gentleman towards any of the mesmerizing cage doors. "It's only natural", she half sheepishly smiles while showing a quick subdued swipe of the tongue. The gentleman nears laughter, then begins to walk off.

@Slumlord: I've finally gotten around to looking at the post you cite, and the AVfM post cited there. The crucial quote is this:

the general tendency of women in this culture to better deal themselves at the expense of men, without inhibition by moral constraints or social prohibition, which is how I define hypergamy

This definition is obviously different from yours (the natural urge to mate up). Your definition refers to the cause, while AVfM's definition refers to the effect produced by that cause in the contemporary circumstances, without inhibition by moral constraints or social prohibition. His invective is also aimed at the effect. And as far as I have seen, his interest is not in causes but in effects, specifically to warn and prepare people who are navigating the shoals of modern relationships:

And by the way, despite the fact I am an old fart, the majority of the readers of this site are young childless men, 18-24; the very population that most desperately needs to know about the possible pitfalls in modern relationships and who stand to lose the most if they remain ignorant.

Now you agreed a few comments back that the absence of inhibition (of hypergamic urges) by moral constraints or social prohibition is bad and should be rectified in some way. Ergo, you consider effect-hypergamy bad, even though cause-hypergamy is a fact of nature and thus ethically neutral. Therefore it seems to me that this is an argument about definitions. Considering it as such, the established terms for related concepts like monogamy, polygamy, polygyny, polyandry all refer to actual behavior and not to inherent natural tendencies, although I will admit that in case of animals the distinction is unclear. Thinking along these lines, perhaps it would be better for consistency's sake to refer to cause-hypergamy as hypergamic tendency, hypergamic instinct or whatever, reserving the standalone word for effect-hypergamy. Femogamy, or whatever variant of the term you may choose, should get the same treatment.

the general tendency of women in this culture to better deal themselves at the expense of men, without inhibition by moral constraints or social prohibition, which is how I define hypergamy

I think that definition of hypergamy gains most traction amongst the MRA crowd. Hypergamy describes what women find attractive, it's not what they do once the attraction button has been switched. It confuses rather than clarifies the issue because it front loads a power dynamic on top of the features of sexual desire. The definition implicitly makes women out to be intrinsically exploitative and it is a typically misogynistic definition of it.

Now you agreed a few comments back that the absence of inhibition (of hypergamic urges) by moral constraints or social prohibition is bad and should be rectified in some way. Ergo, you consider effect-hypergamy bad, even though cause-hypergamy is a fact of nature and thus ethically neutral

Remember, hypergamy describes the nature of the female sexual appetite. The problem is not the hypergamous instinct but the current culture in which it operates. It's a culture which allows appetite to rule over reason and morality, instead of the other way around.

Hypergamy isn't meant to refer to people going for the most attractive mate possible.

It feres to a particular mating strategy amongst women and how it differs from men.

My own view is that we have evolved so that we have never been better wired for mating then we are today. That means unconditional acceptance of hypergamy and femogamy.

I think our "default" animal desires have always been pretty animalistic . Reading over the late stages of the Roman empire and some of the more "interesting"periods of the French revolution would have me believe that once the constraints of morality are removed people get down to business pretty fast.

As for hypergamy, I accept it as a reality, but a reality that must be regulated. Christian morality aside, the statistical evidence out there shows that unrestrained sexuality is associated with a whole host of negative consequences. Looking at it from a strictly statistical view, the happiest couples tend to be those with a low N.

My complaint here is with the demonisation of hypergamy. The same guys who see nothing wrong with men being attracted to hot nubile women (and then sleeping with them) get into a lather when females act the same way. It's not about a double standard as much as recognising when a woman goes for an alpha male she acting in accordance with her impulses in the same way as a man does when he sees a hot woman.

As far as I see, many in the manosphere think there is something wrong with a woman because she is attracted to an alpha male. The wrongness in this instance, is not in her attraction to the man, but in her not evaluating his other qualities. "Thug luvin" for instance, is a good example of where the pussy rules the brain in a woman.

The problem that many in the manosphere can't seem to recognise is that a woman can't be made to feel attracted to a man unless he possess the requisite goods. Attraction is not an act of the will, rather a physiological effect.This is why Athol Kay, and Keoni Galt are so important. They recognise that one way to strengthen a marriage is for a man to make himself more attractive to his mate. Something many seem loathe to do.

Remember, hypergamy describes the nature of the female sexual appetite.

It's your definition. You use the word to describe the nature of the female sexual appetite. Other people use the word in different ways. This does not mean they disagree with your statement that

The problem is not the hypergamous instinct but the current culture in which it operates. It's a culture which allows appetite to rule over reason and morality, instead of the other way around.

Hypergamy isn't meant to refer to people going for the most attractive mate possible.

Note the passive. Isn't meant by whom? The term isn'tcommonly used the way you use it. I don't understand why you insist on your definition being the only correct one. It is certainly possible to employ such a subtle difference in definitions to try and stick a smelly one to the MRA crowd, which certainly has its share of bitter, bilious and otherwise unsavory types, but I don't think arguments about definitions are productive of anything beyond more bile and bitterness.

"Hypergamy isn't meant to refer to people going for the most attractive mate possible.

Note the passive. Isn't meant by whom? The term isn't commonly used the way you use it. I don't understand why you insist on your definition being the only correct one. It is certainly possible to employ such a subtle difference in definitions to try and stick a smelly one to the MRA crowd, which certainly has its share of bitter, bilious and otherwise unsavory types, but I don't think arguments about definitions are productive of anything beyond more bile and bitterness."

"`To be sure I was!' Humpty Dumpty said gaily, as she turned it round for him. `I thought it looked a little queer. As I was saying, that seems to be done right -- though I haven't time to look it over thoroughly just now -- and that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents -- '

`Certainly,' said Alice.

`And only one for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!'

"It would be more accurate to say that the female sexual instinct is hypergamous. Men may have a tendency to seek sexual variety, but women have simple tastes in the manner of Oscar Wilde: They are always satisfied with the best. By definition, only one man can be the best. These different male and female “sexual orientations” are clearly seen among the lower primates, e.g., in a baboon pack. Females compete to mate at the top, males to get to the top."

Given that the audience you are trying to convince are those in the manosphere, one would imagine that you would re-orient your language to convince them of your position rather than demand that they re-orient their language to be convinced by you.

Furthermore, in anticipation, you can't really claim the position that the manosphere has no business constructing their own words because... that is exactly what you are trying to do with this post of yours and your new word femogamy.

It's true that our culture is profoundly hostile to the white male, but I think a far bigger problem is that white males have dropped the ball. The whole, "if there is nothing in it for me then I refuse to play" ethos amongst many just sickens me. My manhood is unconditional.

Good for you, InternetToughGuy. Clearly you're morally superior to all those white candyasses. But unless that's the whole point of your blog, how about doing some pathology? WHY does that ethos prevail today? Why is it endemic to whites? I believe I know at least part of the answers to these questions.

Devlin seems to be using my definition of hypergamy. Quote from Sexual Utopia in Power.

What is the special character of feminine sexual desire that distinguishes it from that of men?

His answer:

It would be more accurate to say that the female sexual instinct is hypergamous.

My highlighting.

He is referring to the nature of female sexual desire, not behaviour in response to that behaviour. How a woman chooses to act under the influence of her desire is a different issue.

I fully expect my wife to find Brad Pitt more sexually desirable than myself. That's the nature of the hypergamous instinct. If she was however, under the influence of her instinct, to break her marriage vows, then her behaviour would not be hypergamous, it would be slutty.

All women are hypergamous. Not all women are sluts.

I imagine this conflation of meanings suits some in the misogynistic portion of the manosphere. Saying that women are hypergamous in nature implies that they are simply always under the control of their instincts and are therefore inherently incapable of bonding permanently to any man. The implication is that they are intrinsically treacherous and just biding time till a better mate comes along.

It also places all the blame on women (something the manosphere loves to do) for marital dysfunction. Yeah, I know there are many rotten apple women, but shit, there are a lot of shitty loser men out there. The manosphere provides a great venue where many can mutually support in each other in their lack of self reflection.

"My complaint here is with the demonisation of hypergamy. The same guys who see nothing wrong with men being attracted to hot nubile women (and then sleeping with them) get into a lather when females act the same way. It's not about a double standard as much as recognising when a woman goes for an alpha male she acting in accordance with her impulses in the same way as a man does when he sees a hot woman."

SP, You're attacking a straw man!!!

I don't think any serious member of the manosphere believes that hypergamy is not a natural, morally neutral instinct.

What people in the manosphere have a problem with in connection with hypergamy are the following:

1. Society today encourages women to act on their hypergamous instincts [you go girl!] even though unrestrained hypergamy is damaging to society and to individual women since it often results in single motherhood, feminization of poverty, involuntary spinsterhood, below replacement fertility, etc...

2. Women today have the option of exercising their hypergamous instincts without constraint. Men do not. If a reasonably attractive young woman comes on strongly to an alpha male, she will probably get laid. If an average man aggressively pursues a highly attractive woman and doesn't do it carefully and with tight game, he might wind up in jail. Feminists and white knights don't see a problem with this because, in their world [and possibly yours] the feminine is privileged.

"I think unrestrained hypergamy is bad. But hypergamy is a fact of female nature. The question then is how do you accommodate it without unleashing its destructive tendencies? Traditional society strongly enforced marriage as a social structure with little emphasis on interparty dynamics. Cultivating desire for each other was actively shunned under the matnra of morality. Modern society celebrates it even though it is destroying it. Third way solutions need to be found."

So what's your third way? Game? Not every man has the capacity to make himself attractive to women through game. And frankly, if we were living in a properly ordered society, men wouldn't have to waste their time on game.

As a Catholic, you should recognize that a return to tradition [patriarchy] is what is actually needed. Feminism is an error and it is a key ingredient in the destruction of western civilization. Your argument that men need to accommodate feminism and up their game in order to rise to womens' higher expectations is also an error. You're simply feeding the beast.

Here's what's really wrong with your search for a third way:

If, somehow, a lot of men successfully raised their game and became more attractive to women then, logically, hypergamy would kick in and womens' standards would rise yet further. This is why there can be no solution based on mens' actions.

The only solution is a return to socially enforced patriarchy. This also happens to be the Biblical solution.

I dunno, SP. I just can't go with that. I think as Susan Walsh says(in comments on her post) that Hypergamy is on a spectrum.

"I believe that female hypergamy lies on a spectrum, like all aspects of sexuality. Some women may feel little of it, others may struggle with the desire to trade up throughout their lives."

SUSAN also said,

"Because I have experienced no hypergamous impulse since finding my husband, I reasoned that hypergamy could not be “hard wired” as an active influence throughout a woman’s life. As in, NAWALT. However, I think it’s more likely that some women are extremely hypergamous, while others may be minimally so."

I have mentioned once before here that since I met my husband I have never wanted another man. Never wanted to sleep with another man. Not ever.I find Antonio Banderas attractive but I don't have thoughts of wanting to have sex with him. Nor do I find him to be more sexually attractive than my own husband, though many other women probably would. :)

I don't think that I have ever been hypergamous. Even in my first marriage.. My first husband had an average government job. I fell in love with him for who he was as a person.. Was never interested in status.Even when we found out he was infertile I stuck by him because I really loved HIM. It was only when he became unfaithfull that our marriage foundered.

My second husband had no money when I married him, either. Of course now he has built up a good business. Would not have mattered if he had not. I love him.. I'll always love him. What he does matters not a jot to me.

I have a good friend, too, who met her husband in her late teens (he is four years older than her) and is still happily married after some twenty years. He is an electrician.

No evidence of hypergamy there. So yeah, I think Susan is right about hypergamy being on a spectrum.

There seems to exist an incurable tendency for everyone to hold themselves back from realizing the implications of instinctual female hypergamy regarding sexual attraction. Here it is:Widespread monogamy plus female hypergamy equals most women will be paired with men towards whom they will never/can never feel much real sexual interest.It is matter of mathematical certainty.

It would be more accurate to say that the female sexual instinct is hypergamous.

There's a difference between this phrase and either of the two definitions (a) "hypergamy is the female sexual instinct to mate up" and (b) "hypergamy is the female sexual behavior consisting in mating up". This phrase is not a definition of hypergamy, it's a description of the female sexual instinct in terms already known to the reader, namely "hypergamy". Moreover, Devlin is probably using the word in the meaning (b) above, because otherwise there would be no need to write the sentence. Moreover, a little below that quote he writes

the female is fickle, infatuated with no more than one man at any given time, but not naturally loyal to a husband over the course of a lifetime. (my bold)

If he meant approximately what you take him to mean, he wouldn't have written "not naturally loyal", but just "not loyal". But you will hardly argue that monogamy is natural — i.e. that it operates on instincts alone, without support from cultural artifacts of some description.

Anyway, this is an argument about definitions. Even if Devlin used the word in your meaning, there are still the dictionary entries I cited a few comments back showing established usage.

Saying that women are hypergamous in nature implies that they are simply always under the control of their instincts

But it doesn't! Please demonstrate how the general statement "women are always under the control of their instincts" follows from "women's sexual instinct is to mate up" or from "in the natural state women mate up". That's just silly.

All of this is not to deny that many men today are nothing to write home about. You seem to be stuck on this point. Sure, so they are. So are many women. For every man who's unambitious, lazy, slobby and can't fix things worth a fig there's a woman who's plain, lazy, slobby and can't cook worth a fig. In a traditional society they would marry and be miserable together. Now they are each miserable alone, one nursing his porn collection and the other her one-night stands with aging barmen and truck drivers.

For those who might want to dispute my cheerful observation I make this request: Draw it. Make a schematic like S. Walsh did once to demonstrate the id driven hook-up dynamic. Show Us how more than a few women get committment from the top guys they were lining up for when they were acting on desire.You will get quickly caught out in saying stuff like, "But that kind of desire is not important."

Hello SP,Thank you for linking to my post. I would just like to make the same comment here that I made on my own thread: women have not had to manage their own hypergamy before. We were under the control of our fathers and husbands, who did it for us. Women need to understand that hypergamy just is and then learn to control it themselves. I wish we didn’t have to learn to do this, but we do, and being pissed off at us for having hypergamous tendencies isn’t helping the situation.

On femogamy: I vote against this term. The preference of men to mate with younger/hotter females is not a salient concept because, whereas they might prefer such females, they will also mate with non-preferred females. Women do not have a saying equivalent to "Beauty is only a light-switch away." That is why I think "polygyny" is the analog to "hypergamy".

I think you misunderstand the meaning of hypergamy. It's not necessarily about monetary or societal status.

It's that women look for men that they can look up to and desire for one reason or another. Why would a woman marry a man that she doesn't feel possesses something to aspire to? For you it may have been your husband's character.

My husband had nothing when I married him. He was and still is very good looking by any objective standard. That, and he is very intelligent and resourceful.

I wasn't into him for his money, though I am thankful that he has had a successful career to date.

As for finding other men attractive: It doesn't mean you want to have sex with them. It just means you can acknowledge that on an objective level, someone else is attractive.

It would be utterly foolish of me to think that my husband sees me as the equivalent of Halle Berry in terms of objective attractiveness.

It doesn't mean he wants to sleep with her or even that he would if given the chance. She seems crazy, unstable, and vain, traits he has no interest in. It's just an acknowledgement of her beauty.

I agree with your assertion that hypergamy in and of itself is not something to whine, complain, or be angry about. It's biology and it serves a purpose.

If you state that complaining about how society handles hypergamy is the same thing though, I'd have issues with that. Right now our society has a horrible handling of hypergamy by rewarding it's destructive properties, ignoring its productive qualities, and in general letting it run amok.

I left an analogy in a comment at M3's the other day in the similar vein. How it worked in the brief time span of human history where 95% of our accomplishments that could be labeled civilization is thus:

Civilization is the cart tilling the earth of a field. It needs to be pulled forward to accomplish anything. To give a place for things to grow that nourish us and allow us to build things worth building.

Men are the horse pulling this cart. Argue all you want, but it's men's labor that pulls civilization forward most (nearly all) of the time.

However, women are the carrot to drive men to succeed. Only the craziest of Alpha's and Omegas don't need a woman as inspiration. It is a woman's hypergamous instinct that makes her into such a carrot though. By only selecting what she deems quality men women drove men forward and they pulled civilization with them - knowingly or unknowingly.

Right now, we've taken the carrot away from men. We've allowed the carrot to be rewarded to the laziest freaking horses that don't do anything or ones that are actually pulling civilization backwards, destroying the field, or otherwise doing harm. Most of the complaints about hypergamy fall into people complaining about the current societal reward of such behavior of men by women, and then reinforcing the women's rewarding of such men by rewarding her as well. Generally such complaints come from the men still strapped in and pulling civilization forward. You rarely see people like me complaining about hypergamy because I'm rarely pulling civilization forward - if I do it's merely because my own pursuits and loves of theatre and community (and ability to make a living doing those) do so by their nature.

Yes, you get men angry and bitter. It's a griefing period when you learn your world view doesn't exist and was a lie. If there were undeniable PROOF that god didn't exist, wouldn't billions of religious people cry out in pain? I would. There will always be people complaining about hypergamy in anger because there will always be new people awakening to the truth. It should be allowed briefly, and then encouraged to grow past such feelings into true growth and pursuit of happiness.

In terms of the male sex drive, it can be harnessed in the same way to move society forward. Or the destructive qualities can be rewarded as well.

The male sex drive is good because it actively picks for women that have the most chance to have many healthy babies with the least danger to herself. In this way, the male sex drive is primed and focused towards the evolution of a tribe by concentrating on biological reproduction of the most people. Choosing a woman that is young, fits certain physical parameters, and (though your post ignores this) has feminine behaviors that focus on motherly tendencies towards raising offspring. The way society rewarded this and reinforced this in the past was by associating a high status on families with many kids. By having systems in place within community behaviors to assist in raising larger families instead of isolating family units. It made a community into a small US vs THEM with other communities being them. Then feelings of nationalism reinforced and superseded the local ones.

The female drive then took these larger numbers created by the male drive and cultivated them into the best society they could be by hypergamy focusing on societal and tribal growth based on the quality of the members, where male focused on simply HAVING those members.

But now we don't have those rewards for male sex drive either. We isolate individual family units, if not championing the individuals themselves over community and even family. We make it increasingly difficult to successfully raise multiple kids, let alone a large family. There's no community support as their used to be. No familial support. Costs of education and food have gone up due to the government artificially allowing such inflation by giving loans to students that can't pay them, for fields that don't pay well. This drives up the price of universities by increasing the demand. Individuals are expected to find themselves via spending lots of their lives acting out or adventuring in their late teens early twenties, when typically they'd be starting a job - losing productivity in our society and also ignoring the fact that many people find themselves in a proper education on how to think rather than an education on hard facts and knowledge - or worse, on soft issues that don't teach to think and aren't even fact/knowledge based.

"Roissy, Roosh, Vk etc refute you. They seem to be able to fuck with abandon and not get into any trouble with it. As for female hypergamy, its the feminist preistesshood that celebrates it. The slut slur still carry's a hell of a lot of weight in our society."

I literally cannot believe this. Roissy was outed by LadyRaine, lost his job, and changed his blogs name, not to mention moved to a multiple blogger format for a long while. Roosh was threatened by skinheads in Europe for "wrecking" their women and literally had to hide for awhile. I don't know much about VK, but the amount of game blogs that have shut down over the past few years -often for fear of outing - is rather large.

And that's not counting that mainstream feminism (with a VERY few exceptions such as Clarisse Thorn)basically demonizes game and that some of the 'game' bloggers made the Southern Poverty Law centers hate list. That stuff is picked up by law enforcement, which means "official" eyes are watching Roissy et.al.

Yeah, I suppose they haven't been dragged away in leg irons, castrated, or shot. But you seem all too sanguine about just what kind of an opinion "mainstream" society in the US has towards "pickup artists".

I'm 6'6", good looking, an at the ripe ol age of 35 (soon) I still get girls as young as 16 just gushing over me, so your saying basically is "let women choose", well mangina. Let me tell you how it really works an you can see it going down all around you. Women choose the Alpha males, keep mangina gimps you around to pay the bills, give them attention, an pay for HER kids by the "better man". You then out of bitter anger vent your anger on other men an create a violent environment for men that intimidate thus adding to incentive for Thug Culture & bad boys. Men quickly realize society is a game of Win/Lose an the losers far out-number the winners an the losers have to pay for all the polygamy single mothers out there via taxes, so they just say "F-this" an play video games all day. Society weakens & dies because stupid women dominate the culture an influence it. It eventually goes bankrupt & conquered by Patriarchal societies. All Feminist countries are DYING, the sooner the better. You create what you hate losers. Keep it up!

PS - Great, can I ask this idiot if we can now kill anyone without consequences, because humans are naturally violent, why should we waste all our time with declarations of war, an political bullshit when we can just knock someone off anytime we like, what's the harm of that, its the way nature made us.

Pfffft.

Logically debating these pussy beggars & approval seekers is a lost cause. The only idiots that push this bullshit are either

1. Relentless pussy beggars that will viciously defend what their female handlers tell them to because the only women that give them the time of day are psychotic Femi-Nazi's. To disagree in any shape or form will result in social exclusion an Forever Alone they will be. Even a thug or bad boy can always get a new women or the old women will "change their mind" after awhile, aka reset.

2. PUA's, who just want to justify the environment of game. All they care about is a society where they can fuck N chuck, a society where women can't just do whatever the fuck they want means no more booty calls. Every pussy comes with a marriage contract which comes after a long courtship where they have to pony up resources to be even considered. PUA's are broke ass losers who spend all their money on flashy cars, designer label cloths, an other "bait" to trick a stupid bitch into spreading her legs.

One of the big tenets of conservative thought is of accepting the reality of human nature. Conservatives believe that you can't socially engineer it to your pleasure; that intellectual error belongs to the Left.

But actually they do. Organized religion is also a form of social engineering, which is often promulgated by many conservatives.

The social engineering view of religion is Durkheimian view of it. The Christian religion is not some social program designed by some overlords to produce a certain societal outcome. Individual salvation is the motive is the prime motivation of the Christian faith.

Anon @ 3:40

Comprehension seems to be an issue, doesn't it? Where have I argued that we need to live strictly according to our primitive desires? Quotes please.

Anon @3:29

This is a discussion about the nature of male and female desire, not an issue about the nature of unrestrained hypergamy. Stick to the topic.

@Clarence

It's one thing to fuck with abandon, and yet another to write about it. The hate Roosh gets from the Eastern Europeans is a traditionalist hate, the hate that he gets in the U.S. is a leftist hate. The problem with Roissy and Roosh is that intermeshed in their writing is a strong conservative streak.

Roissy screwed up with Lady Raine in that he violated her privacy, and posted pictures of her favela on his site.

Warrne Beatty and other Hollywood stars have screwed around with abandon. There is no censure since they are part of the Leftist program.

Leap of Beta

However, women are the carrot to drive men to succeed.

Dude, you're living in Houellebecq's universe: a world where people exploit each other until their erotic capital is depleted.

I didn't marry my wife in order to have regular sex. I married my wife because I loved her. You know, if she had sex with me out of a sense of obligation, I'd literally kick her out of the bed. It just doesn't work that way, at least in my universe. This whole "transactional" attitude to marriage, pushed by the evo-psyche crowd, really justifies the feminist position that marriage is nothing more than a higher form of prostitution.

Only the craziest of Alpha's and Omegas don't need a woman as inspiration.

I've never thought so, but maybe I'm one of those crazy Alpha's. Were I single, I'd still work and create. The working man possess a dignity that the slacker and "poolside" lounger will never posses.

Kathy, Elspeth has a better understanding of my position (and my wife's) than you do.

But you're quite correct, hypergamy exists on a spectrum. The most hypergamous are akin to the "gold diggers" or status queens.

I was literally a penniless student when my wife me. One of the things that I liked about her was the fact that my profession was a turn-off to her(unlike many other women), she used to worry if there would be "anything in common" with us and whether our relationship would work.She seemed more relationship focused than individualistic.

Still, early in the marriage, when I still possessed a fair amount of beta, the marriage did have its rough patches. But unlike many of "game haters" I could see that the problem was in myself and got my shit together.

The other thing, though, is the evo-psyche crowd tend to emphasise the resources and status aspect of hypergamy a bit much, outright masculinity is also hypergamic quality. Manly men are attractive.Your husband may not have had much but he may have been man enough for you.

Women need to understand that hypergamy just is and then learn to control it themselves. I wish we didn’t have to learn to do this, but we do, and being pissed off at us for having hypergamous tendencies isn’t helping the situation.

Correct.

The problem is that our society is orientated to the the ethos of "if it feels good do it" and "as long as people are consenting there is nothing wrong with it". In other words, our feelings are justification enough.

Women say than men think with their dicks, but the modern world lets girls justify their mate choice by an appeal to their "tingle morality".

The problem with traditional society was that it constructed marriages as if sexual instincts in both men and women didn't matter. This created a situation where men and women stayed together out of societal pressure and convention rather than mutual attraction. When the social circumstances changed i.e the 60's, marriages just simply dissolved.

"Your husband may not have had much but he may have been man enough for you"

Yes, THAT'S IT! You are right, SP.

He definitely had that strong manly look about him. Good square jaw, with a nice smile and blue eyes. Though not clasically handsome, definitely a rugged look. I was instantly attracted to him. When I first saw him he was wearing work shorts and a t-shirt, which completed the picture.

I have an aversion to pretty boys and androgynous types..

Then he opened his mouth and I loved what came out of it. :)

An intelligent.... AND manly man.

I have never really thought about this in depth before, SP, until now.My husband IS an extremely masculine man. Played football and worked on a fishing trawler up North for a while before we met.That's a hard gig. My husband has tough mental and physical stamina. Many of the guys had to get off those trawlers because they couldn't take the physical demands and the isolation.

You have literally no idea. Hint, I was in the middle of that Roissy thing as one of his main detractors besides Lady Raine was a lady named Denise Romano. I introduced her to Roissy's blog by mistake. Little was I to know that months later they'd be tag -teaming Roissy and contacting law enforcement about him as they waged a war on the pickup artist community. And this was BEFORE the outing incident, which, I will agree, he partly brought on himself. See I know quite a bit about the USA pickup culture. I've even been part of it, and one of my oldest friends used to work for Mystery.

My point stands: pickup artists are NOT popular in America and are often prosecuted socially, and where possible, legally. And I'd really wish you'd stop trying to get around that. Yes, some people can get away with promiscuity - IF they aren't a member of the PUA community (i.e. if they are famous) and IF they aren't married. General and former director of the CIA Petreaus says "hi".

Yeah I remember Denise Romano. I should say Denise Romano PHD etc. She used to like flouting her qualifications.

Look, I'll concede your point. The U.S. is a much more moral country than Australia, but here, no really cares how many women you sleep with. Though cheating on your spouse does still earn some opprobrium.

SP:Yes, America is more "moral" when it comes to that dangerous evil male sexuality, that's for sure.

Which is really the point. I don't know about things in the Land of the Roos (though I know you have your own issues with feminism), but in America it's not a level sexual playing field because of our messed up culture (a wonderful combination of chivalry and feminism, yay!) and our messed up legal field (esp family law) which has kept the old responsibilities for men, be deprived them of any of of the powers. And , as an example need I mention our military bans porn, bans prostitution, bans fraternization, and has basically extended some soldiers deployments by 2 to 5 years, while allowing feminist inspired legislators to set up a nice sexual harassment policy.You know the military is full of young, horny men and this is what they put up with.

Most parts of the US are similar if not quite as draconian. Insofar as they regulate sex it's male sexuality that is criminalized.

So yeah, at least in the US, the "manosphere" has a point. Unrestrained female hypergamy and restricted male sexuality is bad for society and bad for men in general.

All of this only demonstrates the truth of the statement that the men & women of any country generally deserve each other. The same with government, people get the government they deserve. The modern west is one giant putrescent carcass emitting an intolerable stench & crawling with maggots, child-murder, sodomite parades, mammonolatry, all of it. What sort of fruit can one expect from such a vile & utterly worthless tree?

Looks like boys are indeed falling behind in the OZ education system. This is one article from one of the Australian newspapers talking about boys failing the feminized education system. I wonder whether affirmative action begins at kindergarden?

You're missing the point. It's not a matter of women having the urge or not. It's a matter of them not taking personal responsibility and making conscious rational decisions in spite of those urges.

It might be completely natural for a married man to see a "hotter, younger, tighter" woman as you put it and be attracted to her. He then TAKES PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for the commitments and choices he's made in his life and CHOOSES not to cheat on his wife.

This is what the MRA crowd is sick of. Female Hypergamy is something that needs to be understood by both sexes and women need to start taking some responsibility for their choices before they are responsible for 100% of divorces as opposed for the already staggering 92% they have a direct or indirect hand in already.

You're missing the point. It's not a matter of women having the urge or not. It's a matter of them not taking personal responsibility and making conscious rational decisions in spite of those urges.

It might be completely natural for a married man to see a "hotter, younger, tighter" woman as you put it and be attracted to her. He then TAKES PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for the commitments and choices he's made in his life and CHOOSES not to cheat on his wife.

This is what the MRA crowd is sick of. Female Hypergamy is something that needs to be understood by both sexes and women need to start taking some responsibility for their choices before they are responsible for 100% of divorces as opposed for the already staggering 92% they have a direct or indirect hand in already.

You're missing the point. It's not a matter of women having the urge or not. It's a matter of them not taking personal responsibility and making conscious rational decisions in spite of those urges.

It might be completely natural for a married man to see a "hotter, younger, tighter" woman as you put it and be attracted to her. He then TAKES PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for the commitments and choices he's made in his life and CHOOSES not to cheat on his wife.

This is what the MRA crowd is sick of. Female Hypergamy is something that needs to be understood by both sexes and women need to start taking some responsibility for their choices before they are responsible for 100% of divorces as opposed for the already staggering 92% they have a direct or indirect hand in already.

Personally, I don't give a damn anymore about human sexuality being involuntary or whether people should be free to act on these primitive impulses. Human sexual orientation can submit under the jackboot of human social conventions such as monogamy, rape and adultery prohibitions lest human civilization descent into chaos and we all suffer as savages in the stone age again.

Female hypergamy is normal but it doesn't work for advance civilizations anymore than men fucking all the women the villege.

In a advanced civilization a trade off of women sticking with one man for support for the children was traded in exchange not being able to express her Hypergamy without the law or the husband violence being applied against her.

Vice versa men generally acquired second wives or fucked other women on the side instead of dumping their first wife when she got too old. The early children from the first wife generally reaped the greatest befit from this arrangement. The man could generally divorce his first wife but there were either penalties assigned to this act or a large dowry had to be returned to the women to provide for her.

The problem in the modern world is the penalties for a man leaving are still in place and even stronger than ever but the penalties for a women fallowing her hypergamic instincts are no longer restrained.

The reason why we don't have a separate term for men because male nature is well known and understood and thus doesn't need to be studied and classified. It's female nature that's been hidden and lied about that needed to be studied and classified.

If you feel the need to coin a word for the male sex drive, go for it. Must men will shrug and say "duh".

The problem with this sort of thinking is that it reduces human beings to mindless, hormonal animals. It can be used to justify all sorts of crimes as "normal" hard wired, with no moral dimension. I too like young, pretty women, but also older ones. I have the sense not to go chasing underage ones no matter the looks. I have the mind and choice, experience and good sense to choose more appropriate partners. Just because my crotch says yum! Does not require me to pursue a stupid relationship. Sorry, but giving it a fancy name as rationalization for childish behavior is for weaker minds. Truly wise and mature adults know better. Hypergamous and femogamous is the domain of over-sexed teens.

A lot of women are attracted to the sort of men who will film their 'private' time and subsequently use it against them. When he betrays her so, is she still attracted to him? Is it possible to instil the sort of values, to develop, nuture, the kind of character that will help to see her to see him for what he is in advance?

You might say not likely but I hazard a guess that girls are actually becoming more savvy in spite of themselves. The general decline of civilisation unheeded, the exposure of their own children to MTV and much worse largely unheeded... The welfare of their children more generally often not really an issue but having her sluttishness posted on youtube? There maybe hope for civilisation yet